Hyderabad June 22: A division bench of the High Court on Wednesday directed the power sector companies of TS to file a counter affidavit on the PIL which challenged the decision of the authorities to "absorb" outsourced personnel working under the private contractors of state's Genco, Transco, and Discoms into regular posts.
The authorities told the court that the process of absorbing outsourced personnel into regular posts would not be completed in a few days as it involved a lengthy process.
The bench was dealing with the PIL filed by M Sravan Kumar, an unemployed engineering graduate from Warangal district, urging the court to suspend the operation of the impugned proceedings of the power sector companies and to declare the decision of the authorities as illegal.
The impugned proceedings were issued to absorb outsourced persons to fill 23,699 regular posts of assistant engineer/sub- Engineer and down to unskilled workers in the Southern and Northern Power Distribution Companies and also Telangana State Power Generation and Transmission Corporation Limited, the petitioner said.
Senior counsel S Satyam Reddy, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the decision of the authorities would have severe impact on lakhs of unemployed youth. Senior counsel G Vidyasagar, appearing on behalf of Transco, contended that a PIL case on service matter cannot be maintainable.
As part of reconciliation, Transco authorities decided to absorb the outsourced workers into power utilities and the process would not be completed in a week’s time, he noted.
Disputing with these submissions, the petitioner’s counsel said there was no element of service matter involved in the present case and it was purely a PIL case and that Transco had nothing to do with any reconciliation matters pending before the labor commissioner.
The bench directed the respondent authorities to file a counter affidavit in the case and posted the matter to June 29 for further hearing.